Revised 3 November 2026 · v1.0.0 · what changed

Code: github.com/herrrickshaw/mospi-dataset-analysis-public

Watch the walkthrough

Watch on YouTube: youtu.be/9H9iH_H0cyk

Why it is useful

• Who benefits: students, journalists and policy analysts who want India's headline macro numbers in one tidy, sourced place.
• What it replaces: querying several ministry sites by hand. Each JSON file is a ready-to-load extract with its source and retrieval date.
• Evidence from our read of the committed files: the snapshot lists CPI, IIP, WPI and RBI forex series with the pull date (2026-07-18), and records which connector calls failed or lagged.
• It logs its own data problems (for example the NAS indicator call returned an upstream 500), which is useful for judging how far to trust it.
• Status: legacy. The README says the repo was split and kept for history; use the two successors for new work.

What it is for

The repo is a chronological notebook of questions asked of India's MoSPI data connector (api.mospi.gov.in) and related sources: inflation by state, rupee and reserves, trade balance by HS chapter, import-dependency gaps, and policy coverage. The README lists the 25 MoSPI datasets and the workflow used to pull them.

Charts are static HTML files; data files are JSON. A Colab notebook loads them live. This is policy and economic analysis, not investment or legal advice.

Who it is for

• Students and researchers wanting a worked example of using India's official statistics
• Journalists checking a headline inflation or reserves number against a dated source
• Developers who want JSON extracts of CPI, WPI, IIP and RBI series

What you need

Get the code and an AI assistant

You do not have to be a programmer. Get the repository, give it to an AI assistant, and ask in plain language. Any of these routes works:

git clone https://github.com/herrrickshaw/mospi-dataset-analysis-public.git
cd mospi-dataset-analysis-public
claude      # or: gemini

Install

1. Get the code

   git clone https://github.com/herrrickshaw/mospi-dataset-analysis-public.git
   cd mospi-dataset-analysis-public

2. Open a chart

   open charts/gdp_growth_trend.html   # macOS; or double-click the file

Quick start: commands and what you should see

Read the dated snapshot with Python

python3 -c "import json;d=json.load(open('data/mospi_snapshot_2026-07-18.json'));print(d['cpi']['latest_month'],d['cpi']['general_index'])"

Prints June 2026 and the Rural, Urban and Combined CPI index and year-on-year inflation, as in the sample output.

Sample outputs

Real output from a run on the date shown in the sources line; trimmed to fit.

CPI headline from the committed snapshot

python3 -c "...print(d['cpi']['latest_month'],d['cpi']['general_index'])"
June 2026 [{'sector': 'Rural', 'index': 107.24, 'inflation_yoy_pct': 4.74},
 {'sector': 'Urban', 'index': 106.69, 'inflation_yoy_pct': 3.92},
 {'sector': 'Combined', 'index': 107.0, 'inflation_yoy_pct': 4.38}]

CPI base year 2024, All India, as recorded in the snapshot (fetched 2026-07-18).

The snapshot's own connector health log

d['connector_health']
list_datasets: ok
get_indicators_NAS: upstream 500 from api.mospi.gov.in, fell back to bundled local indicator definitions
get_data_CPI: ok
get_data_IIP: ok (required explicit type=General param)
get_data_WPI: ok
get_data_RBI_forex: ok, but data lagged to June 2025 despite requesting 2025,2026

Honest provenance: the author recorded what failed.

RBI forex reserves in the snapshot (US$ million)

d['rbi_forex_reserves']['series']
2025 January  630,607.39
...
2025 June     698,117.77   (6 monthly points)

Six points, January to June 2025, so it is not current.

Ways to use it

Sample prompts for your AI assistant

Copy, paste and edit the parts in [brackets].

• Read README.md in this repository and explain in plain English what it contains and how the files relate to each other.
• Open the main data file and summarise the three most important findings with the exact numbers and the file they come from.
• List every caveat or data-quality warning the author documents, and tell me which ones affect the figures I plan to quote.
• Show me how to load one of the JSON files in Python (or Excel) and make a simple table of the top 10 rows by value.
• Explain how I would update this analysis with newer official data, and what I would need to re-check by hand.

Limits and honest caveats

Sources: Repo herrrickshaw/mospi-dataset-analysis-public (README, data/mospi_snapshot_2026-07-18.json, chart and data file listing); MoSPI/RBI data as recorded by the repo. Files read 19 October 2026; nothing re-fetched.

About this article: Researched, written and edited by Umashankar Triplicane Dwarakanathan, with AI research assistance; every figure is meant to trace to the primary source cited. See the Editorial Policy for how sourcing, AI use and corrections work.